Diplo Magic

Love Diplo.

Diplo and a DJ named Marlboro brought Brazilian funk international in the mid-2000s. Check out their 2005 profile in The New Yorker and read up on the origins of The Funk Phenomenon in XLR8R, which calls Marlboro the “godfather of favela funk.”

Want to see what the birth of hip hop looked like in Rio? Travel back to 1986 to the Largo da Carioca plaza downtown and Marlboro will show you. (Dancing kicks in after a short intro in Portuguese; sick wave at the 6:00 mark).

More funk:

Favela funk has been on the slow decline since Rio’s Pacification Police (UPP) started taking control of favelas back from drug lords and requiring things like permits to throw parties, but the funk scene in the (militia-controlled) suburbs of Castelo das Pedras is still going strong. Check out videos from the Sunday funk party at CastleRock in RioChromatic.